Pages

google analytics

Saturday, April 28, 2012

My family wanted to come to Orlando for our vacation this year. Coming here allowed us to visit my wife’s dad
and step mom. We don’t see them very
often since they moved to Florida.
And my daughter was most excited to visit the Harry Potter part of the
Universal Studios theme park. That was a
dream come true for her. Me, I’m just
happy to be with my wife and kids as they’re having fun. I could do without the theme parks and the
crowds. I don’t care for all that. I
don’t like crowds. Not at all. I’m too much of an introvert to enjoy the
crowds. But since we’d chosen Orlando
for our vacation, I decided that I would make the most of the opportunity.
After spending two days with my family at Universal Studios and the Islands of
Adventure, I went (by myself) to visit the Holy Land Experience themepark.

Outside the main gate of the park – along the side walks is
a “recreation of the garden described in Genesis.” This "authentically reproduced" parking lot Eden was populated with various smiling
animals to welcome the park guests as they arrived in their large tour group
buses. Though all the brochures and
guide books list the ticket price as $35 dollars – it’s actually $40 at the
gate. Fortunately I had a $2 off
coupon. The woman at the ticket booth
was a little put out when I presented my coupon. She didn’t smile at me like the parking lot Eden animals did.

Things I Learned at the Holy LandExperienceTheme Park

1) Everyone in the bible had a Bedazzler.

The staff of the park wore ‘biblical’ costumes and each one
was more bedazzled than the last; with spangles and beads and jewels and
glitter and fringe on every robe and turban and sandal. It’s part of their “if you can’t have quality
go for quantity” scheme of decoration.
In this same vein – many of the buildings’ walls were painted gold and
adorned with brilliant white pillars. And there were plaster sculptures of
angles and baby Jesus’ every two feet. I
tripped over baby Jesus more than once during the afternoon I spent at the Holy Land Experience.

Stupid plaster baby Jesus…

2) The fifth Gospel is the Gospel according to Mel
Gibson.

There are no thrill-rides at The Holy Land Experience.
There are no exotic animals. But there
are shows, several shows throughout the day in half a dozen venues within the
relatively small park. The highlighted
daily show is the live drama The Passion / We Shall Behold Him an hour
long portrayal of Jesus’ “agony, death, resurrection, and glorious
return!” I found it to be a
bewilderingly unfocused production, with pre-recorded music playing at
painfully loud volume and cast members shouting and running about the stage at
random.

And many of the scenes and lines of dialogue were lifted
from Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ. There was the black robed “Satan” figure that
followed Jesus from the garden of Gethsemane to Golgotha. The flogging sequence included the line
spoken by one of the Roman soldiers in Gibson’s movie “he embraces his own
cross” and had Jesus’ mother and Mary Magdalene mopping up the blood.

And on weekends (Fridays and Saturdays – the park is closed on Sundays) after
5:00 the public is invited to come to the park – free admission – to watch Mel
Gibson’s passion movie on a gigantic LED screen.

3) Jerusalem
was crowded

Actually this may have been the most authentic thing about
the Holy Land Experience attempt to recreate a biblical atmosphere. The streets and walkways of the park were
narrow and crowded filled with people speaking in a variety of languages. I think that if they’d had had more money the
designers of the park would have made it larger, but the park is tiny by
comparison with the other nearby theme parks. The only thing missing were the
animals.

In the center of the park was an imposing recreation of
Solomon’s temple. No. Imposing is the
wrong word. It’s only a façade for
photos and the occasional musical number. What’s really impressive is the
Ark of the Covenant show – impressive for the way that the wilderness
tabernacle is shoehorned into an unmarked corner of the park. I missed two show times because I couldn’t
find it hidden behind the Smile of a Child Adventure Land where
screaming children were climbing on a fiberglass mockup of Noah’s Ark and through the
belly of Jonah’s whale.

4) I’m not as cynical as I could be, but I’m trying

I went to the park recognizing that, for me, it was an
ironic sort of pilgrimage. I went to the
park knowing that I am critical and cynical and maybe more than a little jaded.
I went knowing that I have absolutely no respect for the park’s owners, Trinity
Broadcast Network (TBN). But I went
trying to have a “holy land experience” at the park despite myself. I didn’t succeed too well. But there were two highlights. (Well not maybe not that much… but something
like highlights…)

The first was the communion with Jesus. Just within the park entrance is a recreation
of the Upper Room chapel built by the crusaders (strangely this cenacle is
located within a concrete recreation of the caves of Qumran). At fifteen minute intervals groups are
ushered into the darkened chamber and invited to share communion with
Jesus. It’s grape juice and stale
crackers with a 2nd rate actor, but if there is such a thing as
transubstantiation then perhaps Jesus was present even in those feeble
elements. (and I got to keep the souvenir wooden communion cup...)

I heard my own thoughts echoed in the voice of a dissatisfied woman behind me.
“This isn’t accurate. This is not a
recreation of the first century…” And there I was trying to
release my own disgust with much of what passes for Christianity in America
today...

The other somewhat interesting exhibit at the park was the
Scriptorium – which boasts that it holds the “4th largest Bible
collection in the world” (4th largest collection in private
ownership, that is…) The presentation was lame – (knock off animatronics didn’t
help) but the books themselves were impressive.
Bibles printed in Greek, Hebrew, Coptic, Slavonic, Syriac, Armenian,
Dutch, German, Algonquin, and etc… One
of the books on display was the so-called “Martyr’s Bible” from 1537. It was on
display, opened to pages stained with the blood of the Englishman who died
carrying it. To see the word of God so
carefully copied and transmitted through the centuries in these carefully
preserved pages was something of an antidote to the simulacrum presented in the
rest of the park.